Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The Costa Rica Mission: Relaxing Day


Day 14: July 25, 2012
Today was the most relaxing day I’ve had since I’ve been here. The team had their free day today so that I meant I had the day off! I spent most of it working on getting my social media ministry up and running. I am getting excited about that and looking forward to seeing what God does with it. I got to skype with the family and get a few other things done. I was just starting to wonder what I should do for dinner. And thank goodness I checked my own facebook just in time to see that there was a bonfire at the cabins where the team was staying and if I wanted to go I needed to be to the church at 6… I got the message at 5:40 and it’s a 15 minute walk. So I left the house and quickly walked to the church. I should’ve known  I didn’t need to rush however, as usual we were running on Tico Time (which is anywhere from a half an hour to an hour later than the scheduled time). So even though we were supposed to meet at 6 and leave by 6:15, we met at 6 or 6:15 and left around 6:45.

So we were on our way, five of us travelling in a fifteen passenger van with Derek driving. Keep in mind, to go pretty much anywhere further than fifteen minutes away around here, you have to either go up, down, or around a mountain. In this case we had to go up a mountain. But we were about ten minutes into the drive when Derek realizes he forgot cots for the other team that was doing dance ministry in San Carlos. The dance team was joining the other team tonight and they needed extra beds. So we turned the van around and went down the mountain to get the cots. Two girls got lucky because they had arrived at the church on even later Tico time and would have missed out if we hadn’t had to turn around. So we get the cots and two more people and we’re on our way up the mountain again.

It was a really steep mountain… we were driving a fifteen passenger van with seven people up this really steep hill. Keep in mind, all the cars here are stick shifts… At one point we stalled out because the car was having trouble and I watched a bunch of smoke come up from the hood. Derek pulled over and got out. Also keep in mind, sometimes the roads can be very narrow in Costa Rica, like barely wide enough for two cars. We had to stop on one of those roads. So we were pulled over with our blinkers on waiting for our engine to cool down… in the dark. Thankfully the engine cooled down in like 10 or 15 minutes and we made it the rest of the way safely.  

When we finally got there we had a great meal in the cabins where the group is staying and then we walked down the mountain a little ways for a nice bonfire. One of the workers got the fire started for us but we realized we didn’t have anything to put the marshmallows on to roast them over the fire to make s’mores. There were plenty of sticks around they were just dirty. I asked if anyone had a knife we could  use to just whittle a little off a tip so it would be cleaner. No one had a knife. I was wishing my dad was there, I knew he would have been prepared with a knife for us. But thankfully the worker broke some green twigs off a bush for us to use.  It was a nice night for a fire and it was good to fellowship with others for a while, especially after being home alone all day.

Christine is back too! So it’ll be good to have her company again. Keep praying for me as I seek out what sort of big things God has for me, in Costa Rica but also in the states.

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